This is About a lot More Than Football

Michael O’Donnell, editor of A Game of Two Halves: The Terry Harkin Story, says Derry City's revival wasn’t just about the rebirth of a soccer club - it was about a lost city finding its voice again.

It was 1985. Ulster said no.

The Irish League, the League of Ireland and UEFA said yes.

In our part of the world it is impossible to keep politics out of anything and football is no exception. There were political reasons for Derry City’s expulsion from the Irish League in 1972 and that murky world needed to be navigated if the club was to again take its rightful place at the top table.

The story of how this happened is brilliantly covered in Kevin Harkin’s biography of his father Terry, ‘A Game Of Two Halves’. The inside story of how a casual chat over a cup of tea saw Terry float the idea of Derry entering the League of Ireland.

Terry, Tony O’Doherty, Eamon McLaughlin and Eddie Mahon, made it happen.

It is remarkable that within 18 months their dream became a reality. Even more so to realise that five years from that chat between Terry and Eddie, Derry City completed the first, and to date, only, clean sweep of League of Ireland trophies, 1989’s unique Treble.

But football is merely a subplot to the story.

This is about a city finding its voice. A city tormented by years of crippling unemployment, under investment, gerrymandered elections. Seeing our streets on the television was a daily event, the pictures festooned by the familiar voiceover words “shooting,” “bombing,” “killing,” “murder,” “condemnation.”

The narrative was changing.

I was eight years old when Derry left the Irish League. I was 22 when on September 8 1985, Home Farm wrote its name into our history as our first League of Ireland opponents. And, decent types that they are, they obliged us by losing 3-1.

What happened next I never saw coming. The way the city was consumed by football. We had our own heroes, our own players to sing about. Even our own songs.

This has never been better explained than by one of our own, the late Ryan McBride when he said “Young boys grow up dreaming to move across the water to Man United or Celtic, but my dream was to play for Derry City and to captain them.”

He did play for and captain Derry. And with such distinction they named a stadium after him.

This is what the club brought but not just to the sporting arena.

Hope. Ambition. The realisation that good things don’t just happen to other people in other places, peaked over the horizon.

People now had something positive to hang on to, a sense of purpose, togetherness, a shared aspiration. Even those who had no interest in football, found themselves in the middle of it. Nothing brings out the sandwich making expertise in Derry women than a good wake or an away match.

Following Derry in those days was to take a Master’s Degree in Irish geography, with fans able to proclaim with commendable confidence, how long it would take to get to EMFA, Newcastlewest, or Cobh if you left at 10.30 on Saturday morning, with allowances made for traffic entering Ardee, (it could bottleneck sometimes but they did have lovely floral arrangements to admire), and bathroom breaks.

It was during those moments that Derry’s greatest export, its people, became a living breathing advertisement for the city.

Thousand would descend on these towns and villages, drink their bars dry, fill their hotels and bring an unexpected financial boon. Footballs fans’ reputations at this time was poor, hosts were initially wary, however it took but a short time to see the truth, families travelled together to watch their team and have a good time.

There was never any trouble, it was, if you will, like games at Brandywell without the need for the local constabulary, policed by consent. No-one stepped out of line.

It’s a sobering thought that it is now 37 years since Derry joined the League of Ireland.

Our city, geographically, politically, culturally, and economically, can be viewed as an outpost by outsiders.

We disagree.

This is the place that produced two Nobel Laureates, chart topping singers and songwriters, award winning actors, and many, many internationally sports people.

The talent seeps through the barriers put in front of us.

We never stop.

We never give in and we never give up.

The success of Derry City is a huge manifestation of that attitude. Our football club was taken away from us and robbed generations of players of the opportunity to play the game ay senior level, and who knows, follow their predecessors Jobby Crossan, Fay Coyle, and Terry Harkin, and their successors James McClean, Shane Duffy and Paddy McCourt across the water and into the international game.

The motto of Barcelona “Mes que un club,” More Than A Club, travels well. It sits comfortably with Derry City.

As Felix Healy said after he scored the winner in the 1989 FAI Cup Final to secure the Treble.

“This particular day was more than about football. It was about a community. It was about a community that was wronged and forgotten about. It was this community saying ‘look at us now.’”

He’s right.

Look at us now.

Just look at us now.

Another Story - How Not to Offend a Tullyally Farmer

A brutal reality check for Anne this week, as her new radio boss gently explains that she's got the perfect voice for newsprint... 

Anita started, continued and ended her broadcasting career in a totally professional and competent way.  It was a joy to listen to her mellifluous delivery, command of language and distinctive, amusing take on life.  I, on the other hand, crashed disastrously onto the airwaves and Foyle’s listeners must have heaved a collective sigh of relief when Libby came back to assume proper control of her programme.  Those two weeks of holiday cover were the longest of my life.

Poor Maureen Gallagher was tasked with keeping me in line.  My stint on the afternoon magazine slot was my first as a presenter and Maureen’s first as a producer of other than her own material.  However bad I was, everything would have been a lot worse if it hadn’t been for Maureen and her expertise.  Most of the programme was live and, in the midst of chaos, we did have some laughs.  Like the time we covered an agricultural show and a goat attempted to eat my clipboard. Or the interview I managed to do with a sex-change model (man to woman) without once mentioning ‘penis’ or ‘vagina’.  For some reason I reckoned those words would give the vapours to Brandywell housewives and find disfavour with Tullyally farmers.

Some items were pre-recorded and I clearly remember one morning  interviewing a jeweller from Hatton Garden.  We were going to insert the clip in the afternoon by the way the phone-call was live.  I kept making mistakes and referring to morning.  About the third time I did this, I got so frustrated at myself I blurted out, ‘Oh shit!’  Maureen calmly came in with, ‘Cut out the crap, Anne.’  How apt.

The one thing Maureen couldn’t control was my lazy, drawly speech.  In what amounted to a debrief  after Libby’s triumphal return, Ian Kennedy said, ‘Anne, you’re great on the radio -  if it weren’t for your voice.’  Woe was me.  I went from Foyle straight to Anita’s where I exhausted her supply of tissues and wine.  And sympathy no doubt.

So, the end of my broadcasting career?  Not at all.  Ian seemed to like my ideas and interviewing style, so I moved to producing recorded pieces where I could largely edit out my own voice or keep trying out the links until I got a bit of life and speed into them.  God bless Mr. Kennedy.

Some months into contributing to Foyle, Anita and I walked into reception to a wondrous sight.  We’d been allocated our very own pigeon holes!  Proof positive that we had our feet under the table.  Those of you who have only met Anita fleetingly will find it hard to imagine this largely composed and unflappable public figure jumping up and down like a two year old and shrieking with delight.  I, of course, took it all in my stride. ☺☺

There was only one problem.  Most days we’d see everyone else’s pigeon holes bulging with interesting-looking communications, whereas ours only tended to house the lonely – but welcome – payslips or periodic memos.  Enter John Friel, the perfect gentleman who was about to present his new classical music programme, in between headmastering a local school.  John must have heard me bemoaning my lack of mail because a couple of days later I was ecstatic to see a respectable duo of proper letters in my box.  A wee white envelope and a long white one, both posted, one typed, one hand-written.  And both from John.   What a darlin’ man.

Anita never threw anything out.  Her capacious roof-space absorbed clothes, shoes, books, teaching notes, debating speeches, article drafts, theatre programmes – you name it, it went skywards.  She was even capable of getting sentimental over used biros.  I used to rib her mercilessly .  Then I unearthed my huge store of Derry memorabilia.  Pot, kettle…..she’d have the last laugh now.  I’ve even found newspaper clippings about a series I don’t recall doing.  But that’s another story……………………..

Mind Your Aitches

This week Anne reflects on adapting to teaching life at Faughan Valley High School in the early 1980s 

I finally talked my principal down from ‘Equus’ for the school play, even though there could have been a ready supply of horses from many farming parents.  Russell McKay believed in stretching his pupils – and staff – but even elastic has a snapping point.  After many tussles, we compromised by putting on ‘She Stoops to Conquer’.  It soon became clear that even this was proving to be a bit of a challenge, so I ended up rewriting and shortening swathes of it to make it manageable.  Probably offended against every copyright law in existence, but there you have it.  Incarcerate me now.  The important thing was that the pupils involved loved strutting their stuff and Russell was pleased with the school’s first ever production.  And I had no problem rolling back and forth across the road to rehearsals.

If I’d depended on walking to and from work to put much of a dent in my 10,000 steps a day, I’d have been on a hiding to nothing.  Faughan Valley Secondary was a minute away from home as the crow flies, a wee bit more if you had no super powers.  There was only one downside to living so near.  I was scared that, if I had call to bring a troublemaker to heel, I might be in line for the odd stone through the window.  Maybe worse if it were known that I kicked with the wrong foot.  Anne Gray was a pretty neutral name, so that gave nothing away.  Still, I soon learned to add the extra bit onto the Our Father and say aitch instead of haitch, the litmus test for determining footery I think.

Not that this subterfuge would have pleased Russell, a committed educator and a liberal to boot.  He practiced positive discrimination before it became fashionable and was determined to get more Taigs into the staffroom.  In my day and in my sometimes imperfect memory, he only managed three of us – Anne McAuley, Geraldine Garvin and myself.  All women, all in our thirties and none of us would have scared you if you’d bumped into us on a dark night.  Coincidental I’m sure.

My head of department was Stella, a fearsome, super-organised English woman.  She was the only one who had her own seat in the staffroom – an armchair to the left of the wall-mounted electric heater.  God help any new teacher who dared to sit there.  Stella ran a strict ship.  Her classes were always beautifully behaved and their exercise books were a joy to behold.  My room was next door to hers, so I was always on my mettle.  Stella was married to a big shot in Dupont, or so she would have had us believe.  The most interesting thing about her was that she had a brother who was a falconer.

Stella and her husband, Richard, invited Bryan and I to dinner one night and, although everything about the meal was exquisite, my main memory of the evening is of Richard showing us Stella’s household folder.  It was hard not to match his enthusiasm for the laminated sheets detailing kitchen cupboard contents, bed linens for respective rooms, grocery shopping checklists etc., but we managed it. When we had them to our house – much to Bryan’s dismay - I ran myself ragged trying to impress.  I gave them a choice of starter, main course and dessert.  They were perfectly nice, maybe just a wee tad supercilious.  Bryan had only one culinary duty – to provide coffee at the end of the meal.  By that stage, he was so bored and far past himself, he plonked ignorant big mugs, the sugar bag and the milk bottle on the table and left us to it.  It took me years to forgive him.  Now I salute his nerve.

And then there were my debating teams and meeting Anita Robinson.  But that’s another story…